


Define Yourself

by oxfordlunch



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Biphobia, Bisexual John, Coming Out, Gay Sherlock, Homophobia, M/M, Pride, Self-Acceptance, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-18 19:39:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14859012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordlunch/pseuds/oxfordlunch
Summary: A series of brief vignettes in honor of Pride Month.





	1. Statement

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how many of these I'll be writing, but I'll update the tags and rating with any new content as needed.
> 
> Wishing everyone a very happy and safe Pride 2018.

Sherlock finds him in the bedroom, embraced by the open doors of the wardrobe.

"John?"

A distracted hum is the only response. Sherlock steps carefully over the jumble of discarded pyjamas and slippers in the doorway and steals up behind him, taking a moment to admire the neat edge of his haircut where it meets the dear nape of his neck, because, well.

John has a strong neck, and the tapered, silvering curve of his hair never fails to fill Sherlock up with enormous, indescribable _feeling_. Just beneath, John's shirt collar (new shirt, interesting) is turned in, and the urge to reach out and fix it, smooth his hand over the warm skin and stubble just above it, is stronger than he can control.

"Lunch with your sister today, isn't it?" He cups his palm around the base of John's head and strokes a thumb over the edge of his ear.

"Look at you, paying attention to the calendar," John murmurs, leaning into the touch.

Sherlock offers John a small smile, even though he's facing the wrong way to see it. He tweaks the now-neat collar of John's shirt. "Been shopping?"

"Yeah," John says, and there's a sharp edge on his voice, a bit of _What of it?_. He holds his arms out in front of him and stares quietly at his sleeves.

And right about now is when the man Sherlock was years ago would have told John in no uncertain terms how ridiculous, how unfounded his anxiety is, how it's laughable John would ever think that in London, of all places, a pink shirt, faint and swirling floral print and open collar and all, would somehow out him, that wearing it would be making some sort of statement.

The man Sherlock is now steps up as close to John's back as he can get and slips an arm around his chest. He hugs him against the length of his body and presses his lips to the warm, rough skin where John's sideburns would grow in if he ever let them.

"Love this colour on you," he says into John's ear, and he revels in the way the tension begins to fall out of John's frame like rain from a heavy cloud.


	2. Clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the tags that have been added and the rating change.
> 
> Apologies for the less-than-happy update, but you can't have the highs without the lows, right?

The window is painted shut, she'd explained earlier, apologetic, so the room is muggy and stuffy and smells like there's mould lurking behind the plaster.

He can't be arsed about any of that.

Beneath the sheets, his prick is damp and chubby, gloriously spent; above the sheets, the sweat on his bare chest cools and chases the lingering red flush from his skin.

She shoves his hip playfully, and he turns his head with a grin, delighted by the sight of her flopped gracelessly on top of the sheets, breasts askew, left hand down somewhere below, grooming and putting things to rights.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," she says, having barely caught her breath.  She nudges his hip again.

He blinks, his comprehension sluggish in the afterglow.  "Like what?"

"Like I dunno, John, but you're so _boring_ ,  God, there's got to be something interesting about you."

He frowns.

She goes on.  "I think you're lovely, honestly, but--"

"Boring.  Right."

"Prove me wrong," she says, grinning, poking him in the side.

His brain is so thoroughly shagged out, so full of endorphins softening the edges of everything, that he barely thinks about the words that come flying out of him like the ills out of Pandora's box.

She's alternative, anyway, he thinks.  She's a modern woman, training to be a doctor just as he is.  It's London.  It's fine.

"Right, well.  Yeah.  I have sex with other men... fairly often.  Does that count for interesting?" He smiles through it, keeps his voice light, like it's not the heaviest thing in his life.

She snorts, shoves at his arm, says "Oh, fuck off."

He turns his head and stares at the bedroom wall, not able to look at her.  The residual endorphins suddenly fully faded, he feels like his bollocks might crawl right up inside him and never come out again.

"S' the truth," he says.  "I'm not... I'm not fussed either way, I like a bit of everybody, I just... I dunno."

Her choked "Oh my god," is enough to make his stomach sink low.  "You... Oh my god, are you _serious_?" And now she's almost shouting, her lovely warm voice gone high-pitched, and she's gathering herself up in her own arms and pulling away from him.

His stomach falls, and falls, and falls, like he's plummeting out of the sky and the ground is never going to come.

"Get out, get the _fuck_ out."  She shoves him, and there's nothing playful in it this time.  He puts his arm up in an attempt to keep her from putting her hands on him again.  "Were you ever planning to tell me that, then, or were you just gonna wait until you gave me a bloody disease?"

He ducks out of the bed, stumbling to his feet, and he ought to be shouting back, but that last bit, that implication, stings.  His face burns as he stoops to gather his clothing up off the floor.

"Oh my god, I let you in me with no condom, you _pig_ \--"

"I'm clean," he says sharply, defensively, unable to keep quiet about that point.

"Get to fuck," she fires back.

He tugs his pants up over his hips, throws on the rest of his clothes, and slams the bedroom door as hard as he can on the way out.

His hands shake the entire walk home.


	3. Mess

She tips a quarter bottle of HP sauce over her entire fry and enjoys the familiar nauseated expression that crosses her brother's face as he watches her do it.

"Honestly? You've been elbows-deep in human entrails before, you nancy," she says, pointedly licking a gob of sauce from her thumb.

He finishes chewing a bite of toast, swallows, and holds up a hand.  "I'm just saying--"

"Go on," she says, and reaches for the ketchup.

He tips his head skyward, laughing helplessly, like Jesus might come down and save him from having to watch her eat.  "I really hate you," he says.  He jabs a loaded fork in her direction.

It's funny, she thinks, how to her eye he still looks about seven years old, the lines and acne scars and beard shadow barely even registering.  There are flecks of runny egg yolk dotting his chin, and he's got toast crumbs absolutely everywhere, and he's forty-three years old and she's got an inexplicable, vestigial urge to clean him up.

Their childhood was shit, collectively, but once upon a time, she'd been an extremely protective older sister to a sensitive, messy, towheaded little boy who fell in love with everything and everyone he met.

"You haven't changed one bit, Johnny."

He quiets, starts poking at his food, wears a half-arsed failure of a smile, and she rolls her eyes, taking a long pull on her cup of tea.  "Fuck's sake, don't start with the sad puppy face already.  I'm trying to be fond."

"Sorry?"

"God, nevermind."

He says nothing for a long minute while she sits and goes mad with the urge to break the silence.

"Just," he starts finally, still staring at his plate.  "I think I've changed quite a lot, actually."

She doesn't tell him he's just been hiding, really, that he's always been there underneath, exactly as he is.  Same as she's been hiding herself away in liter bottles of Everyday Value vodka all these years.

Instead, she takes another sip of tea and nods at him.  "Nice shirt."

He breathes out, a soft huff that's nearly a laugh but not quite, and reaches his left hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

She doesn't tell him she's happy for him, or that she's glad he's found himself a good man, after all that disaster with the woman he married.  (She told him he was making a mistake, but what does she know about women, she's only a big old bloody lesbian).  She definitely doesn't say anything twee like _I love you_ or _I missed you._

When they stand up to leave, she brushes the toast crumbs off the front of the most flamboyant shirt she's ever seen him in, hugs him, presses a kiss into the top of his greying head.

He says it was good to see her and sounds like he actually means it.

She thinks she could say the same.


	4. Dangerous

Vinegar fizzes on his tongue, bready and sparkling, rousing his mouth out of liquor-induced numbness.  The lurch that his stomach gives every time he inhales the steam rising up from his food might be hunger and it might be nausea and he can't be arsed to care; it smells _delicious_ , and everything is _brilliant_ , and he feels absolutely pissed and reckless and yeah, he ordered a full portion when maybe a half might have been enough, but that bone-deep sensation of not giving a single fuck is half the fun of a good night out anyway.

He wants a shag badly.  He's aroused down to the very tips of his fingers, even though he literally couldn't get hard right now to save his life, not after the six (seven? Heavy pours, in any case) vodka-Red Bulls, but he _wants_ , and the wanting is somehow even better than having would be.  The wanting feels incredible.

He reaches to his left and gives the inside of Sherlock's thigh a solid grope under the table, right there under the sticky Formica and buzzing fluorescent lighting.

Sherlock groans through a mouthful of chips.

John can feel it, physically, the energy pouring out of him and into Sherlock and out of Sherlock and back into him, like a closed circuit, electricity endlessly cycling through them both.  Stunning.  He's so _happy_ , and when he ducks his head to the left, lets his gaze fall for a moment on the chewing, smiling profile of Sherlock's handsome face, curls plastered back off his forehead with mingled sweat and hair product, he thinks he's not alone in that.

They aren't alone either, though, and really it's the three football-kitted, beer-gutted blokes a few tables behind theirs that are keeping him from feeling purely euphoric.

He does his best to ignore them, and concentrates instead on the taut fabric of Sherlock's jeans under his hand and on shoveling down his battered cod.  He watches Sherlock eat, his long fingers delicate while the amount of chips he's shoving into his mouth in one go is decidedly not.

Sherlock hums and melts into the bench as John traces his fingertips up and down his inner thigh and gives him another, warmer squeeze.

A moment later, John feels him shift and very nearly press a kiss into his cheek, and he feels shot through with nerves like he's had ice water sluiced over his head.  It's hateful, it's truly awful, the fear is, because the beautiful energy between them is even stronger now with Sherlock's face so close to his, breath warm and sugary with energy drink and sweet chili sauce and right against his ear.

"We're very dangerous men, John," comes the rumble of Sherlock's voice.  It goes straight to his cock, straight to his core, and he closes his eyes for a moment, sucks in a deep breath.

"We're very drunk men," John murmurs, feeling his words slurring together slightly as though they're trying to make his point for him.

Sherlock hums like he's laughing inside.  "Hardly defenseless," he says with a nudge of his nose against John's ear.

John's spine is so tense he feels like he can't move.

Sherlock drops his voice even lower.  "And even if we were," he says firmly.  He slides his own hand over to rest it on John's thigh, nuzzles the side of John's head, kisses his cheek with a soft brush of his lips.

He says nothing else aloud, but John hears what he's telling him anyway.

John pulls his hand away from Sherlock’s thigh and slides it around the back of Sherlock’s neck, draws their foreheads together, lets their breath mingle.

There is warmth absolutely coursing through him, like he's just downed another drink.

"I love you," he murmurs.

Sherlock smiles back at him, and John can tell he feels the warmth too.

When Sherlock has finished off his own chips and most of John's as well, he nearly trips over his own feet standing up, and he starts giggling uncontrollably.  John slides a steadying hand against the small of his back, helping him towards the door.  He leaves his hand there even when Sherlock finds his footing again.

He can feel the eyes on the back of his neck, but when they reach the exit, all he hears is a cheery "Night, gents," from the young man behind the counter.

He flips up his free hand in acknowledgement, tosses out a friendly "Cheers, mate," and doesn't look back.


End file.
